Federal Financial Management

What’s the next big thing in efficiency at Treasury now that electronic payments is well on its way to full implementation? This paper by John B. Hill, the Assistant Commissioner for Payments and Chief Disbursing Officer at Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service proposes that the next BIG Thing is E-Invoicing. Here is his paper: Download (PDF, Unknown) Let us know what you...

So I guess you have to be an old guy like me to remember Keith Jackson, long-time ABC Sportscaster, shouting “Whoa Nellie” but that’s what came to mind as I read the latest on the US Marine Corps audit saga. Apparently GAO has forced the DoD Inspector General to retract the Marine Corp’s clean audit opinion because of problems in the suspense accounts. Here’s a link to an article in Defense News with the details. I have opined on DoD audits on several occasions….first shouting with joy at the accomplishment, then wondering if it really mattered and...

My oldest grandson, Colin, got into preschool because he played well with others and shared his toys. The federal government is in the early stages of testing its ability to share. Several agencies are working hard to use shared services while others seem less than enthusiastic. Whether the government will measure up to Colin’s preschool standards is uncertain. Certainly each federal agency has specific—and unique—program responsibilities. Handling those core and unique programs well is essential for each agency. It is also clear that there are numerous administrative support...

There are two areas of the DATA Act implementation that I will briefly discuss. These two areas are closely linked together: XBRL as the standard for data; and the opportunity to leverage numerous approaches and software to obtain the goals of the DATA Act. XBRL as the Standard Having XBRL as the standard for data may indeed be the right long term goal. However, it is very likely that implementing XBRL as the standard for all data sources will not be complete until well after the deadline for implementation of the DATA Act. In the meantime, Treasury and OMB need to develop a strategy...

On May 9, 2014, President Obama signed the DATA Act. The purpose is to improve the accuracy, timeliness and accessibility of Federal spending so that the public is better informed and better decisions can be made by policy makers. The DATA Act is very broad in scope basically encompassing all Federal spending with some exceptions for national security. It also requires that data standards be developed and enforced and data be reported at very detailed levels. Spending data will be accessible to the public and policy makers on an existing Federal website, USASpending.gov. Treasury and OMB are...